


advance to go

by wildcard_47



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M, Gen, Monopoly (Board Game), Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 22:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3626175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt taken from a fanfic meme floating around Tumblr: "Teach me how to play?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	advance to go

In the creative lounge, there’s a sudden curse, followed by a hiss of pain. “Ow!”

When Lane peeks his head into the dim corridor to see what’s the matter, he finds Joan standing near the round table in her stocking feet, grimacing, rubbing the pad of one foot with her hand. She releases her toes, and bends down to retrieve a small metal trinket that’s lying on the tile.

On first glance, he assumes it’s jewelry—broken charm from her bracelet, perhaps—but there’s some kind of game spread out all over the table behind her. A colorful board is strewn with paper, small tokens, cards, and what appears to be a mismatched pile of winnings. 

She straightens up, holding the piece between her finger and thumb while beckoning him closer with her free hand. He has to squint in order to look at it properly; it’s a tiny top hat.

“Meredith never makes them clean anything up,” she sighs. She doesn’t have to tell him who _they_ are. Creative played earlier this afternoon; he heard the commotion from his desk. “I’m tempted to throw it all in the trash.” 

“Hm.” Lane moves closer to study the board, noticing a square that boasts the name _Reading Railroad_ , and is covered with small plastic houses: red and green. He vaguely recalls what those are for, some kind of property trust, or whatever. “More interesting than I—imagined." 

This remark doesn’t escape Joan’s notice. “Did you ever play when you were a boy?”

“Oh—board games, do you mean?” Lane shakes his head no, feeling a bit awkward. “Father thought them, er, childish, so we were never allowed." 

“My mother used it to teach me about mortgages,” she says, smiling. 

His eye catches one of the yellow game cards lying face-up near the table’s edge. On a strange impulse, he begins reading it aloud.

“You have won second prize in a beauty contest. Collect—ten dollars.” Lane can’t keep himself from grinning as he meets Joan’s eyes. “Only ten?”

“Well.” Her mouth quirks up again. “It was only _second_ prize.” 

She’s clearly trying not to seem too pleased by this remark, but she’s smiling ear to ear now, and he just loves her, and all of the sudden, words are falling from his lips of their own accord.

“Teach me how to play.”

Joan raises an eyebrow. Lane feels the back of his neck get very warm, and hastens to amend this request.

“If it’s not—too much trouble.”

 

**

 

“Oh, I’ve been imprisoned four turns now, won’t you just have pity on me?”

Lane flings his community chest card to the ground with a drawn-out sigh. _Bank error—_ and he can’t even collect the reward, according to the rules. Typical.

“You’re in jail,” Joan giggles as she emphasizes the last word. “You have to suffer.”

He knows she’s remembering the spirited grammar debate they’d had earlier in the evening, as she had been explaining the rules. _Why would there be an o in the word jail? That’s ridiculous._

 _It’s ridiculous for America to spell it_ without _that letter. If you were shown the two words together, and were asked which one of them best denotes the legal concept of confinement, and in the most elegant manner—_

With an amused noise, he tosses a tiny hotel at her, which misses her arm by several inches. Her eyes widen, and she flings another straight back—catching him on the shoulder as he bats the plastic piece away from his face. Inside her office, the telephone starts to ring, and Joan excuses herself to answer it. When she returns to the table, she’s laughing again.

“I told Mom what we were doing. She says I ought to put my clothes on and get home already.”

Lane feels his face go red, although the image is very funny. Playing board games in the nude. Honestly. How on earth would you be expected to concentrate? 

It takes him a moment to realize he’s said all this aloud, because when he meets Joan’s gaze, she’s smirking at him in an appraising way.

“Maybe next game,” she teases, rolling the dice across the board, and moving the tiny shoe six spaces forward. His brain is temporarily stuck on the dual prospects of _nudity_ and _next time_ , and so Lane nearly misses her announcing the result, her mouth forming a little moue of delight as she reaches for a stack of yellow bills.

“Ooh. Park Place.”

 


End file.
